Cole Harbour man found guilty of assault causing bodily harm

Ashton Thomas MacNeil now has a conviction for assault causing bodily harm to go along with one for aggravated assault, both from an incident in downtown Halifax in August 2011. (PETER PARSONS / Staff / File)

The head injuries a young Dartmouth man suffered at the hands of Ashton Thomas MacNeil in downtown Halifax last year were serious but did not constitute “wounding” as contemplated by the Criminal Code, a judge has ruled.

Judge Anne Derrick on Monday found MacNeil not guilty of committing an aggravated assault on Jonathan Clarke but guilty of the included offence of assault causing bodily harm.

Two weeks ago, Derrick found the Cole Harbour man guilty of an aggravated assault on Clarke’s friend, Brett Myketyn, who suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries that required life-saving surgery.

But she asked for further submissions on the charge concerning Clarke, who was in hospital for three days. Small bleeds were detected in parts of Clarke’s brain but no neurological intervention was required. Breaks in his right cheek and eye bones were left to heal on their own. He has a small scar by his right eye.

“It is more a matter of good fortune than anything else that Mr. Clarke’s injuries were not as severe as Mr. Myketyn’s,” the judge said in her decision, released Monday in Halifax provincial court.

“That being said, it is not uncommon for one-punch assaults to have tragic outcomes. Good fortune alone can be credited for that not being the result in this case.”

MacNeil, 23, will be sentenced on the two charges Jan. 4. He’s in custody at the Dartmouth jail.

Clarke and Myketyn were both 19 when they were assaulted on Sackville Street on Aug. 26, 2011.

According to the evidence at trial last month, MacNeil was at the Pogue Fado bar on Barrington Street when he got angry at his girlfriend for being too polite in declining another man’s offer to buy her a drink.

The couple left the bar and were discussing their disagreement in an alcove outside Reflections club when Clarke, who was with a female friend, stopped and asked what was going on. MacNeil responded by dropping Clarke to the ground with a single blow to the face.

A couple of minutes later, Myketyn was trying to talk to MacNeil when he, too, was felled by a single punch.

MacNeil testified that he acted in self-defence, but the judge ruled that that belief was not reasonable.

MacNeil was arrested again last May after an incident at a bar in Cole Harbour and was denied bail. He’ll stand trial in Dartmouth provincial court next March on charges of aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, causing a disturbance and five counts of breaching release conditions.